


Don't Leave Me (Again)

by neversleeps



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversleeps/pseuds/neversleeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny future!fic and comfort fic after 5x22. Something that needs to happen one day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Leave Me (Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from my Tumblr (standbydamon).

He’s there.

Elena can’t explain how she knows it, but she feels his presence with so much certainty as if she could see him.

It’s not enough to fill the aching void in her chest – nothing is, because she knows he’s not there to stay.

“Please, don’t leave me,” she chokes out through tears she feels like she’ll never stop crying. This isn’t happening, she says on repeat in her mind, this can’t be happening. She can’t lose him, not now that she finally knows. After everything they’ve been through, she finally understands that none of it matters – not their fights, not people’s judgment, not how right or wrong it is to be with him. What matters is that she can only envision one kind of her future – a future with Damon.

Now, she sees none.

He’s still around, and it _hurts_ , because it means that he doesn’t want to leave her, either, that he wants to keep his word. I will make it back to you. I will never leave you again. Words that meant so much and don’t mean anything any more.

I have to keep myself in check, Elena reminds herself in panic, I have to be strong for him. Somehow, it only makes her cry harder – ugly, suffocating sobs that wreck her insides and make her feel sick.

“I love you, Elena.”

Maybe she only imagines he said it. Maybe she’s hearing things, hallucinating, going crazy faster than she expected. But it doesn’t even matter, because she knows it’s true.

“I-”

The rest of her words is muffled by her sobs, and she takes a deep breath, because she has to try again.

“…love you, Damon. Always.”

Not that her _always_ – her eternity – means something now that she has to spend it alone. 

Just like that, she doesn’t feel him any more.

“No.” She drops on her knees on the hard stone floor. “No!”

“Elena!”

She jolts awake in her bed, instinctively following the voice. Her heart is racing uncontrollably, breathing erratic, and as she moves, she feels she’s sweating.

“Ssh, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

She hides her face against his chest, reaching out to trace his face with shaky hands. He presses her closer and caresses her hair, arms, back, waiting for her heartbeat and breathing to calm.

“That nightmare again.” He isn’t asking – he knows.

“Yeah,” she breathes and pulls back slightly to give him a long, tender kiss. He responds in kind, lips moving with hers in an easy, unhurried rhythm. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers between kisses, and Elena smiles against his lips. 

“It’s okay. We survived it.” She pulls him on top of her, wrapping her arms and legs around him, holding him as close as she can. Almost. Those promises did mean something, after all. They mean everything. “Just don’t die on me again, okay?”  
Damon nods and kisses her, and that’s all she needs.


End file.
